Not
about the disciples, it is about the movement.
A lot about the organizational problems centered around the lack of focus on
the real issue arising from the frailty of humans can be learned from books on
religion. Religions also are the well spring of values around which
societies are built. The Christian religion, which is based on the mystery of
the Resurrection of Jesus, can help us comprehend the
missive of this piece.
After the resurrection, Jesus appeared to His dispels including when they
were in a room where the door was shut because they were afraid of the Jews.
John 20:19-23 (New International
Version)
19 On the evening of that first day of the
week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the
Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!"
20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were
overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
21 Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you!
As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." 22 And with that he breathed
on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone his
sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not
forgiven."
As the Sunday preacher underscored, Jesus encouraged them to open
the door and share the movement - " As the Father has
sent me, I am sending you." (John 20:19-23) The emphasis was
not on the disciples. He did not want them to huddle in a room with doors
shut. Their job was not to protect themselves.
Rather, the emphasis was on salvation that He preached about and He
asked them to share with all.
By analogy, the emphasis of the Kinijit movement should not focus on
the disciples. Rather it should be on the movement. Kinijit
run on a platform that enshrined human rights, individual rights, the
supremacy of the rule of law, and a one-person-one-vote-democracy in a
pan-Ethiopian society. The overwhelming majority of the electorate
voted the Kinijit Party to power. The tyrannical TPLF placed
the elected leaders in jail, and continued to pillage Ethiopia.
As of December 2006, Zenawi invaded Somalia
at which the meager economy of Ethiopia
is wasting, and his soldiers are killing and dying every day for a
senseless cause. The Kinijit movement that the jailed first-tear leaders, now
incarcerated in Kaliti, spawned is defocused by poor
second and third-tear leadership and imposters including some from the
Diaspora Kinijit supporters. Some of the individuals in the second and third-tier
positions are enamored by their presumed rise to prominence.
They forget that they shall tumble down to their ignominious level pulled down
by the gravity of their vanity. They forget that it is the movement and
not them that is important. They forget that the electorate voted Kinijit
as their salvation from the destructive powers of Zenawi
and his TPLF. They forget that as the popularly elected body, the Kinijit
leadership now in Kaliti, is the leadership of
Ethiopia
and not only of the Kinijit Party. They forget that Zenawi who delivered famine to Ethiopia,
is sharing surplus famine in Somalia,
that Zenawi who made food scarce and expensive in Ethiopia
is doing likewise in Somalia,
Zenawi who brought senseless killing in Ethiopia
is doing likewise in Somalia. Zenawi hopes that the senseless murder of Somalis in Somalia
will
result in senseless murder of Ethiopians in
Ethiopia
,
but failed to anticipate that the response will hurt him in his pocket as did
the
April 24,2007,
massacre in the oil fields of southeastern Ethiopia
between of Deg Ha Bur and Jijiga. Despite
Ethiopians who mourn the loss of life of Ethiopians and the Chinese workers, Zenawi sees the whole issue as loss of revenue to his
coffer. People should not forget that Ethiopia
has reached the breaking point. The vanity and squabbles among
second and third-tier Kinijit leadership and imposters is disallowing Ethiopians
from getting a meaningful and well-organized opposition to and removal of Zenawi, the horrible tyrant.
Jesus asserted: “If you forgive anyone his sins,
they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."
(John 20:23) This phrase has been
a subject of debate and interpretation among Christian fathers. On the face of
it, it appears that the disciples were given full powers to tell a Christian
that his sins have been forgiven or retained.
Some enterprising churches took moneys from individuals so that the
church would forgive them of their sins.
The holy steps in the Vatican
were climbed with the view of reducing 9 years from purgatory, which Martin
Luther, the father of the Protestant Church,
did in 1511 when he visited Rome
. Brother
Luther rebelled about difficulties imposed to go to
heaven and found solace in the work of St. Paul, who asserted that man is saved by faith
and through the grace of God. For a flavor of the dispute on means of salvation
read this:
“CATHOLIC: Romans 3:28 is
a key verse in the differences between traditional Protestants and Catholics.
You will notice that Paul says a man is justified by faith (pistei
in Greek). When Martin Luther translated the letter to the Romans into German in
the sixteenth century, he added the word alone —but alone is not
in the original Greek text. The phrase "faith alone" does
occur in the New Testament: one time, in James 2:24. There the inspired apostle
denies that justification is from faith alone. Let me quote it: "You see
that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone." http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2003/0303sbs.asp”
Before Martin Luther visited Rome,
the Ethiopian monk Abba Estifanos of Gunda
Gundei,(1380?-1450)
had taught his disciples to read and adhere to the New Testament, and worship
God and only God. His teachings were strict, and he and his followers
would not bow to any other thing (the Cross, the icon of St. Mary, etc.,) or
person (the emperor) as they considered bowing to be a form of worshiping.
(http://aboutethiopia.com/c12-preemption-is-a-false-right.htm)
Clearly, the teachings by Jesus and by St. Paul,
and the protestations by Abba Estifanos and Martin
Luther of the practices of the ambient churches have indicated the profound
differences people hold when dealing with the powers vested in liaison officers
and viceroys.
Would using Jesus and his teaching annoy people of different faiths?
As an evangelist once taught, Jesus waited for the right moment to establish
his Kingdom on Earth as it is in Heaven. The establishment of the Roman Emperor
in which regions far away from Rome
were ruled similar to those in Rome,
through representatives and appointees of the emperor seated in Rome
was a necessary model for Jesus to spread his message from the Heavenly Father;
and with the intention of establishing a kingdom on Earth as it is in Heaven.
Jesus was not in the business of counting noses or ideas from Earthly
creatures. He was providing the truth and the truth flawed one way, from
Heaven to Earth and not from Earth to Heaven. The Kinijit movement is not
about establishing any Kingdom nor is it in the business of sharing a
message from anywhere to Ethiopians. Rather the movement is based on a
salvation of Ethiopia
from the TPLF tyranny by employing powers and reasons derived from
the people, conducted by the people and implemented for the benefit of the
people. Kinijit is not for one religion or the other. Kinijit leaves
religious affairs to the fathers of the different religions and to the
individuals who profess them.
Continuing the teachings of Jesus, we find that He told the Apostle Peter: "Before the cock crow twice thou shalt
deny me thrice" (Mark 14:30
)
Also, Jesus knew that one of disciples would betray Him for a reward a few
coins. Is it surprising if some disciples of Kinijit will deny the teachings of
Kinijit while some others will betray the movement for a few dollars?
Not to expect denial or a selling out by some disciples of the Kinijit movement
is equivalent to admitting that the disciples are not human. However, the
movement does not vanish because of temporary denials by some or the effort at
selling the cause for a few dollars by the unfortunate ones.
There are doubters. People my doubt that there ever was a Kinijit leadership that received the overwhelming majority of the electorate in May 15, 2005. Others may doubt if the Kinijit movement believed in the rule of law and the primacy of of one-pesoon-one-vote democracy. People may doubt that the first tier of the Kinijit leaders was incarcerated for more than a year by the tyrannical Woyane Tigrai regime. Such doubting Toms were addressed in a teaching by Jesus (John 20:24-29) as follows.
24 Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!"
But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."
26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" 27 Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."
28 Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"
29 Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
Another interesting teaching is to realize how the carefully selected and
hand-picked disciples of Jesus who were with Him up to the Last Supper,
before the crucifixion, were not sufficient to spread His cause and establish
Christianity. It took Apostle Paul, a sophisticated, well-schooled
individual, though initially a tormentor of the followers of Jesus to anchor
Christianity. It is therefore important to recognize that a movement becomes suffocated
and dies by the huddling together and the closing of the movement to be run
only by a few hand selected individuals instead of opening up the movement
and increasing the possibilities for its spread and entrenchment.
The time to place all hands on deck on ship Kinijit is now. The time to
encourage Ethiopians and to safeguard their interests is now. The time to call
on all armed forces of Ethiopia
to guard against the probable fratricidal armed conflict among Ethiopians is
now. "Inae ke
motek serdo ayebkel" [Let no grass
grow after my death] is a condition attributed to donkeys and Zenawi. It is when food items are scare, the prices of
the food items are high, and the tensions severe that leaders emerge to
release the stress and remove the forces of that stress. It takes
dedicated democrats to insist that democratic procedures will prevail in all
regions.
Bertu
HG: 4/25/2007